


Blue

by Rastaban



Category: Ingress (Video Game), Niantic Project / Ingress
Genre: Gen, If You Think This Has A Happy Ending You Haven't Been Paying Attention, The Fine Line Between Genius And Madness, Things Are About To Get Lovecraftian In Here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rastaban/pseuds/Rastaban
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They never published the article, and even if they had, no one would have believed it. It was clearly mad, and despite the byline and the inarguable authority of the source it diverged so far from reality that it had to be considered fiction. No one could understand why Mr. Robert Harrison Blake might have penned it; some thought it simply a joke or a half-hearted attempt at venturing into literature, while still more considered it must be a component of a performance piece, and all the lucid semi-reality it described merely an extension of the artist's sculptural work into text. In any case the artist himself denied all knowledge of it, despite the fact that he must have been its originator, and dismissed any questions as to its truthfulness with a laugh, asking only that they set it aside and forget about it. And with that most considered the matter settled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cyan

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this short story very early in the course of what was then the Niantic Project, when it was still in the ARG stage and Ingress had just released. I dropped out of the fandom shortly thereafter, so it doesn't incorporate any of the later canon (and I'm sure some of what I've written contradicts it). Nevertheless, I like this piece, so here it is.
> 
> [Link to story post on tumblr.](http://sundayswiththeilluminati.tumblr.com/post/94507922235/story-post-blue-nianticingress)

They never published the article, and even if they had, no one would have believed it. It was clearly mad, and despite the byline and the inarguable authority of the source it diverged so far from reality that it had to be considered fiction. No one could understand why the author might have penned it; some thought it simply a joke or a half-hearted attempt at venturing into literature, while still more considered it must be a component of a performance piece, and all the lucid semi-reality it described merely an extension of the artist's sculptural work into text. In any case the artist himself denied all knowledge of it, despite the fact that he must have been its originator, and dismissed any questions as to its truthfulness with a laugh, asking only that they set it aside and forget about it. And with that most considered the matter settled.

But the erratic behavior of the artist in question in the last few months prompted thought, and there were those among the editorial staff of the magazine that had received the piece who clung to the idea that perhaps there was more going on than anyone would say. They were the ones who smuggled out the copy and sent it, anonymously, to a number of websites, before they found one that would publish it under a loose collection of conspiracy theories that had been dubbed "Niantic."

* * *

I cannot explain the origin of any of this, and I will not even try. This is one of those peculiar cases in which the cause itself eludes expression and the disease may only be described by its symptoms. I will try to tell things in order as best I can, although I am beginning to doubt my own recollection.

I do remember that summer dropped like a hammer blow onto Washington DC. Late August brought a heat wave that left the capital gasping, lying slumped along the riverbanks in a daze. The sun blazed flat and hot out of a pale blue sky bleached by dust. Congress had broken for its autumn recess and left the Hill to the tourists that ducked from museum to museum and huddled in the shade of monuments.

I made my way through the sparse relief afforded by the trees planted along the wide dirt pathways that outlined the National Mall. The fields themselves were brown and blistered, the sound of cicadas blending with the wash of distant traffic. In the mornings the street vendors parked their trucks along these roads and hawked bottled water at four dollars apiece, but now the noonday sun had driven even them to seek shelter. Still a few of them looked out from the shade of their makeshift stalls at the sight of me coming down the sidewalk, as if they could sense I was no native and might be tempted into buying a White House postcard or a CIA ballcap.

I ignored them, hitched my satchel higher on my shoulder and aimed my gaze straight down the boulevard. The East Building of the National Gallery of Art was a knife-edged collection of polygons scattered in the distance, wavering like a mirage in the heat haze. The bag weighed heavily on my shoulder. I wiped sweat from my brow and resolved to cut my hair. Letting it grow long in some mock Bohemian fashion had been a poor decision for a summer visit to a Southern city.

The last stretch leading up to the glass doors of the building was a wide plaza exposed to the full brunt of the sun. The hot air rising from the ground cast fluid suggestions of shadows across the scalloped patterns of stone. Beyond it loomed the low rectangle of the museum's entrance. With my goal in sight I picked up the pace, sweating beneath the heavy band of my bag. I ducked beneath the overhang of the entrance and relaxed at last in the relative cool, trailing my fingers along the smooth pink marble facing that covered the entire building. The heavy glass doors swung open at a shove and I made my way inside.

The security guard on duty behind the desk looked up when the door opened; it was Elias again, and he smiled in greeting as I made my way over. "Hello, Robert," he called as I approached. "Was beginning to think you wouldn't be here today."

"Hello Elias," I answered, my throat dry. "It's killer out there." I slung the satchel off my shoulder and set it down on the flat surface in front of him, snapping it open and turning it towards the security guard for inspection. Elias glanced through it, noting nothing more than the usual clutter of sketchbooks, pencils, pens, erasers, and all the rest of my kit.

"Can't believe you're out in that heat carrying this," he said. "The sacrifices you guys make for art, I guess."

I only nodded and accepted the satchel as the security guard pushed it back. A deep drink of water in the food court buried beneath the museum, and some of my strength seeped back. I returned to the vaulted atrium above. The huge space was meted out in great triangles, anchored at the center by an enormous Calder mobile. The floor below was still, the museum almost empty in the punishing midday heat.

I found one of the wide benches, set my bag down, and began to extract sketchbooks and tools. Today was going to be the day. I knew it. It had to be. Today would not be another wasted afternoon that I blamed on forgetting my favorite pencil, on lacking the right weight of paper. I flipped open the first sketchpad. The blank expanse of white seemed a void beneath my fingertips. Above me the great booms of the mobile turned slowly. The shapes that hung from them sailed through the open space, drawing chaotic patterns.

The dusty marble baked in the late afternoon sunlight. I threw the sketchbook into one of the trashcans in the food court before I left the building, before it was emptied by the museum workers cleaning up before they closed. Elias had already left his post; I exited in silence. The sun had dipped towards the horizon and new shadows stretched across the cobblestones, but when I pushed open the glass doors the heat dropped back down on me like a smothering blanket.

Behind me the door clicked shut. The finality of the sound rang inside me; I felt suddenly drained, beaten and exhausted. I couldn't walk another step. With the museum locked I stumbled instead towards a niche to the left of the entrance, a square-profiled tunnel cut through the building, and slumped against the pink marble.

Across the plaza in front of the West Building kids ran through jets of water that burst from the fountains embedded in the ground. The tips of the water jets shredded into mist that boiled away in the sunlight. Above them the sky was a blank blue canvas framed in marble. The bag weighed heavy on my shoulders. Every day for the last two weeks I added something new to it before I ventured out. It had yet to make a difference. It had yet to make a difference which museum I visited, which gallery I spent the day in vainly sketching the art of others. I slid down to the smooth-fitted flagstones that floored the little tunnel, clenching my fists in mute frustration.

Nothing helped. I was done. I knew it in some dark corner of my mind. I would never make it out of art school, let alone become an artist of any merit. The spark that had once driven me had flickered and died. This last-ditch effort - this trip to first New York and then DC's museums, for which I had exhausted the last of my savings - was just as much a failure as the two years before it. My inspiration was gone.

The great fin of sculpted marble that formed one wall of the tunnel cast a long shadow over the smooth expanse. At the fin's point the line dividing light and dark ran stark and clean, but as it traveled away from its origin it blurred into a hazy grey. The fountain jets fired off in a shower of noise and mist, twining with the rippling shadows of the hot air that rose from the stone, twisting up into the blue void. The bag dropped from my shoulders. The sun lay across my face. The marble was cool beneath me. Slumped against the wall, weary and drained, I drifted.

_The blue reached out of the sky._

I stood up from the stone.

The heat had broken. The world had gone still and grey around me. The line of shadow lay beneath my feet, dividing the steel light from a formless haze. As I watched the shadow seemed to shift, seething, rising up from the stone and spilling outwards like a low mist. I bent and scooped up a handful. It felt like a breath of cool air, draining away between my fingers.

I stepped out of the tunnel onto the cobblestones of the plaza. The children were frozen midstep among the jets of the fountains, the water caught in strange, amorphous shapes. Vapor hung in trailing scarves. Behind me the shadows kept rising. They flowed over my discarded bag in a sudden eddy, emitting a brief blue crackle like a static discharge.

I walked on. I felt as though someone were standing just behind me, over my shoulder, whispering reassurance. There was a still knowledge within me that this was right, a fact with all the certainty of a dream.

The light dropped away. I looked up and saw the sun disappearing behind a descending vortex of cloud. The wind picked up, fresh and cold, whipping my hair and clothes with sudden strength. Goosebumps prickled along my arms; the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. There was an electric scent in the air, the kind that came before a thunderstorm. Blue shadows were rising from the earth now, rushing and foaming, pooling in the plaza like water. They splashed in great sprays over the outdoor sculptures that guarded the front of the museum, crackling with energy. I watched the edge of it as it reached me, some part of me marveling at the calm I felt, and reached down to the mists as they flowed across the plaza. Now as I dipped my fingers into the fog it lit with a strange, hollow luminescence, a light that had darkness at its core.

I straightened up, following that inner voice. The invisible shape standing at my shoulder followed with me, matching me step for step. The mists leapt and twined around my ankles as I walked forward. When I reached the frozen curtains of water I saw the same electric blue filaments sparking among the chaotic shapes, a wavering plasma haze that boiled around the petrified fountains.

I reached out to touch--

"Robert! Mr. Blake!"

"Whuh?" I said.

I was lying on my back staring up at a stone ceiling. Elias was bending over me, gripping my shoulder. "Robert, wake up," he said. "Time to go home."

"I--" I started, trying to get up, then staring around myself in surprise.

I was back in the tunnel by the museum entrance. Elias was kneeling down next to me where I lay sprawled across the marble flags. The sun had dropped below the line of buildings; evening dyed the sky indigo. The little alcove lay in shadow.

"I'm sorry, I..." I rubbed one eye with the back of my hand, then pressed it to my forehead. My head was splitting. "I must have fallen asleep."

"It's the temperature," said Elias knowingly. "It gets to you." He stood up and offered his hand. I took it; Elias helped me up, still rubbing my head. I leaned down to pick up the bag where it lay discarded on its side, then groaned at the sight of its contents splayed out across the stone. I must have left the top flap open when it had fallen over.

"I'm really sorry," I stuttered as I began stuffing sketchpads and drawing implements back into my bag, chasing down stray pencils. Elias bent down to help me when I fumbled them. My muscles felt strangely jittery, twitching as if they were working off the aftereffects of an electric shock. "It's just been - sorry, I have a lot of things on my mind. I didn't mean to crash like that. I'm not trying to sleep here for the night or something." I tucked the last piece away. "I'll get out of here."

"Relax, don't worry about it," said Elias. "Hey, don't forget your sketches."

"What?" I said.

Elias proffered one of my stray sketchpads. The top page was covered with a mad design, a fantastic structure of interlocking shapes and swirls of motion.

"That's something else," said Elias approvingly. "Glad to see all your time in here's paying off."

I stared at the pad in the security guard's hand. The swirling charcoal lines of the sculpture seemed to twist somehow, opening up into--

"Hey," said Elias. "Robert? You okay?"

I blinked. "Yeah," I said. I took the sketchpad and flipped the cover closed, stuffing it into my bag. "Sorry. The heat."

"Have some water," advised Elias.

"I will. Soon as I get back to my place. Thanks."

"Don't worry about it. Have a good evening," said Elias.

"Yeah," I said. "You too." I turned and headed out of the little tunnel, across the plaza and back out onto the sidewalk. The streetlights were kindling one by one. When I glanced over my shoulder I saw a spark light up as the security guard switched on his flashlight.

The shadows between the lamps seethed at the edge of my vision. I ducked my head and hurried on.


	2. Royal

The morning talk-show host grinned at the camera, showing far too many teeth. "He's the sculptor on everyone's mind this week after he transformed New York City with the installation of his Thousand Gates work," she told the camera's flat glass eye. "Please give a big Morning Coffee welcome to Mr. Robert Harrison Blake!"

I stepped across the line that divided the darkness of the studio from the warm, brightly-lit square of faux living room set. The audience applauded as I took my seat on the garish cherry-red couch next to the host, then settled down as I was offered the trademark oversized coffee mug blazoned with the show's logo. I smiled, feigned gratitude and took a sip.

"Mr. Blake, you've been called one of the rising stars of the art world," gushed the host. "Just a few years out of school, you're already being hailed as an expert in abstract and kinetic sculpture. Critics say your work is a fusion of the best of Calder and Gehry." She burbled with all the certainty of someone who had memorized the appropriate Wikipedia pages minutes before. "So what can you tell us about your inspiration for Thousand Gates?"

"Well, Cathy, I wanted people to think about space," I said, setting down my mug on the coffee table - also carved into the shape of the show's logo - and moving into my routine. This would be the third morning talk show I'd done today alone. "All day we see structures around us, but we don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they're arranged. I wanted people to think about space itself."

"Like outer space? I'm not sure that..." She trailed off with a grin as the audience laughed along. I managed a pained smile.

"No, I'm sorry. More like physical space. This studio, for example. To your cameras here it appears to be a cozy living room. Of course it's much larger than that, because it has to house your audience out there--" the faceless cloud in the darkness hooted happily, charmed by the attention "-- and this is all part of a bigger building. And we think of the air around the building as being empty, but in truth the shape of that, the way the building interacts with the world around it, can have just as much meaning as the building itself. So it's all about space and how we perceive the spaces we're in. Thousand Gates is an attempt to get the public to see the spaces they move through."

"That's fascinating," said Cathy. She put up an image of one of the Thousand Gates structures, this one deployed at a small intersection in Manhattan. A rigid framework of metal struts held a huge streamer of blue cloth that billowed in the wind, its motion shaped by carefully adjusted tension ropes. "Now personally I think these pieces are just gorgeous--" _'just gorgeous' you ignorant human, can't you see the grace of those curves, the elegance of how they channel the flow, the subtle beauty of the mathematics that describe the what am I going on about she's just a talk-show host_ "--but a lot of people haven't been totally thrilled by the appearance of art along their daily commute. What do you say to critics who claim you're making it harder for them to get to work?"

"I'd say that if I've made them take more notice of the world around them, I've succeeded," I said, shaking off my sudden annoyance. I had been doing too many of these shows. "I've made this installation for them, not for art critics and a handful of connoisseurs."

"You seem to do a lot of works that are meant for public areas."

"I'm actually more interested in public art," I told her. "Art shouldn't be locked up in museums. The public should see it and participate in it, if possible."

"So you believe the public has a role in this installation?"

"You know, I do. In a sense we're all part of this work."

"Even us non-artists?" she said, smiling again. The audience chuckled at the flash of self-deprecation.

"It's wrong to think of the world as being divided into artists and non-artists," I answered, more forcefully than I had meant to. I felt suddenly jumpy, wired. "We all have the ability to be creative in some way. But we have to be receptive to it. I think of creativity like - a force, an electric potential, and we must make ourselves the lightning rods through which it earths itself. We are the means by which the realm of the fictional enters the realm of the real."

Cathy's toothy smile had frozen. I had clearly lost her. But something was urging me on. The words seemed to pass out of my mouth without my intervention. I had the eerie sensation of standing outside myself, as if my viewpoint had shifted just a few inches to the left and left me watching while someone else continued speaking.

"Everyone can be creative, and I think we recognize that creativity in all sorts of ways. Not just artistically. You mentioned Gehry earlier. Well, a good example of his work is the, uh, the Stata Center at MIT. Have you ever seen that place? It looks ridiculous, non-Euclidean - like something an origami artist might fold if they dropped acid." The studio audience ornamented the tired joke with dutiful laughter. "But the building that was there before, Building 20, it was famous for being this amazing hotbed of scientific creativity. Somehow the people in that place were inspired to build things nobody else could imagine." I could see Cathy from two viewpoints now, hear my own voice echoed back to me twice, like stereo channels moved a half-second out of sync. "They pioneered radar there, anechoic chambers, strobe lighting, and lots of other things - linguistics, Chomsky's work on linguistics all started there, all sorts of things. So when they took Building 20 down, they had to replace it. And they replaced it with this total madhouse. Because that's the representation of what that place was. Creativity, unbridled. It's the same in art as it is in engineering. And this building that breaks all the rules, it's there to help the people who break all the rules."

And I saw the Stata Center before me, overlaid on the plastic simulacrum of a living room. I saw the arc and flow of the power that followed every line of it. It didn't break the rules, it followed them. Every fantastical coil of steel was an instruction, an invitation, a bridge that opened up to--

walking down a Manhattan street, looking up at the blue sky within the frame of the the buildings, when a sudden shift in gravity, in perception, twists the open space into a tunnel, a gate through which a mind could fall forever--

a Thousand Gates opening up, all across the city--

an opening into a great blue void, and the graceful shapes that knotted together, tracing out the chaos and the rhythm beneath--

I heard the voices shouting from underwater as I lay in the ruins of the logo-shaped coffee table. They had a slow-motion urgency about them, but I felt quite certain I was beyond their concern. I was warm and safe, buoyed up in the waves of blue, lifted up out of the warm square of living room and out into the blackness of the studio beyond.

There was a light shining in my eyes.

The light flicked away and revealed a thoughtful face gazing down at me with professional concern. The light flicked back into my eyes. I squinted. It moved away again.

"He's responsive," said the mouth that belonged to the face, speaking off to the side, and now I parsed the figure as a brown-haired woman leaning over me in a nurse's blue scrubs. She clicked off the penlight and said, "Mr. Blake? Can you understand me?"

"Yes," I tried to say, but my mouth was dry and the words caught in a coughing fit. The nurse leaned back and fetched a bottle from a cart, twisted off the cap and held it to my lips. I drank, swallowed, felt the coolness of it spread out through my chest. "Thank you," I said when she moved it away.

I was lying in a hospital bed in a ward that seemed as calm as a hospital ever got. I felt no pain. The nurse sat beside me on a small rolling stool next to a stainless steel tree on which a number of IV bags were hung. I followed the graceful catenary curves of their tubing down under the thin sheet that covered my bed.

The nurse capped the bottle of water and set it beside my bed. She leaned back out of the range of my vision. "Go tell Dr. Mendez he's awake again," I heard her say, and then her face returned. "Mr. Blake, I'm Nurse Michaels, but you can call me Leah. Do you remember me?"

"No," I said. "Were you at the TV show?"

A little wrinkle of worry creased her brow. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Strange," I said. I felt weightless, as though I might drift off the bed at the slightest gust of wind. My body seemed a vague suggestion. "What's happening? Am I ill?"

"Well, the doctor is on her way," said Nurse Leah. "But the short version is, you overdid it a little." She smiled her most reassuring manner. "You passed out from exhaustion and they brought you here. We have you on fluids, but that's all. You're in no danger, don't worry, but you weren't all there for a little while, so we've kept you for observation."

"I assure you, I am all here now," I said. Sensation returned as though my brain were inking the rest of me back in with swift, sure penstrokes. I fit into my body like someone trying on a new glove, reaching in and testing each limb. "How long have I been asleep?"

"You've been in and out," said Nurse Leah. Again the little wrinkle appeared. "It's been a few days since you were admitted."

"A few days?" I repeated, shocked. "I have several dedications and lectures--"

"You're on bed rest for at least another two weeks," said Nurse Leah. "Dr. Mendez can explain everything to you when she arrives."

"I feel fine," I began. I did. A newfound energy was flooding into me, filling me up like a glass vessel. I could see the shapes of my sculptures out on the streets of Manhattan, the patterns of each rope and strut, and I knew the thousand minute errors in their positioning that had to, _had to_ be corrected as soon as I could get this shell out of here and--

"I'm afraid you're going to have to stay in bed, Mr. Blake," said Nurse Leah, all traces of good humor suddenly gone. I realized with a start that I was half-risen from my bed, and that she had put one broad hand on my chest to stop me from attempting to leave then and there. The look in her eyes brooked no disagreement; I ordered my body to relax and slumped back down onto the thin mattress.

"I'm sorry," I said. I could swear that for a moment her stern expression had held something of fear. "It's just that I have the installation out there right now. I'm a bit concerned for it."

Some of the sternness left her face. "I understand you've got a lot on your mind, Mr. Blake, and we've contacted your assistant to let your studio know you're awake, but for right now I need you to wait until the doctor comes. All right?"

"All right," I said as meekly as I could. "But in the meantime, is there any way you could find me a piece of paper and something to draw with?"

Another fleeting, worried look crossed her face, obvious to me although it was only there for a fraction of a second. I marveled at my powers of observation. I seemed to be seeing the world around me with new eyes, eyes that caught every nuance and detail. She was hesitating. She was, underneath all her professionalism, afraid. Afraid of what?

Doctor Mendez arrived several minutes later. By then I had covered most of the first page with a sinuous flow of lines in ballpoint pen, and only looked up when she took a seat on the stool that Nurse Leah had vacated. She was a pretty Hispanic woman with a white coat and a stethoscope slung around her neck, the very image of a modern doctor.

"Hello, Mr. Blake," she said cordially. "I'm Doctor Mendez. Do you remember me?"

I laid the pen down. "The nurse asked me that too," I said.

"I need you to tell me if you remember me," Mendez repeated.

"No," I said. "Why do you keep asking me?"

"Mr. Blake, how do you feel right now?"

"Robert is fine," I said. "And I feel fine. A little worried about my installation. Has my assistant arrived yet?"

For some reason this caused her to relax slightly. "That's it?" said the doctor. "No other complaints?"

"I'm out of paper," I said, showing her the sheet Nurse Leah had finally, reluctantly torn out of her notepad. "And I'd like something hard to write on."

"Mm," said Mendez. She paused as if holding some internal debate, then reached into her pocket and withdrew several sheets of paper identical to the one I was currently drawing on. "Do you recognize these?" she said, fanning them out.

They were drawings, preparatory sketches for sculpture work done in my trademark style; but they were sketches of things loathsome to my eyes, wretched, distorted shapes. I pushed her hand away, averting my gaze. The imbalance, the grotesque proportions of them - they were hideous to me, even though the doctor showed no such aversion to their contents. They had to be my own work, but I could not imagine forcing myself to trace out such horrible things. "No," I said. "I've never seen these."

Mendez nodded to herself as if a theory had been confirmed. She folded the drawings back together and set them on top of a small monitor next to the bed. "Robert, this is not the first time we have spoken. It is the eleventh. It is the eleventh time I have introduced myself to you, and each time you have claimed that you do not remember me and that we have never met."

I must have looked stricken. I could find no words. Mendez went on. "After your collapse on television three days ago you were brought here and diagnosed and treated for exhaustion. You were unconscious the entire time, so I don't expect you have any memory of it." I shook my head. "You regained consciousness about seven hours later. Although you seemed lucid at first, you insisted that the nurse bring you something to draw with and produced these--" she tapped the little pile of sketches "--before seizing violently and passing out. Since then you have awoken nine times, each time insisting that you be treated for..." She hesitated. "...A disease which you were unable to describe, but which you seemed convinced was somehow 'taking over your mind'. In each case you passed out again within ten minutes."

I was dumbfounded. "I don't know what to say, doctor. Except that perhaps I should refrain from reading horror novels before bedtime. I apologize for putting you and your staff through such an ordeal," I said. "Am I healthy now?"

Mendez checked her watch, then the various monitors next to my bed. "You've been up for the better part of an hour with no relapse, so the worst seems to have passed. But we'd like to keep you for observation for a few more days, Robert," she said. "You may seem recovered, but it's going to take a little while to be sure."

"I'm afraid I don't have the time to spare," I said firmly. "I have a very large installation scattered across the city right now and it requires a great deal of work to keep in order. Where is my assistant?"

"Your assistant has been contacted," said Mendez. "I must strongly caution you against leaving the hospital--"

"Your concern has been noted," I said. "Please send my assistant in as soon as he arrives and make the arrangements for me to be discharged." I picked up the pen again. My surroundings seemed to have taken on a bluish tint. Perhaps it was the hospital's fluorescent lights. I felt as though I could hear a sound from very far away, a distant, muffled screaming.

Mendez continued to watch me with a level gaze. "Mr. Blake, it is my recommendation that after you're discharged you seek a psychological evaluation," she said.

"I'm fine," I assured her with a serene smile. "Everything is all right now." I looked back down at the structure taking shape beneath my pen. "Everything will be all right."


	3. Indigo

The steel rafters rang with the sound of arc welders. With no fabric or brick to damp the echoes inside the old aircraft hangar, the screech and hiss of the welders and the cutters reflected until the barrel-shaped roof practically buzzed off its supports.

"The titanium's still a problem for the - untitled piece," said Marcus as he walked by my side. We strolled through the great open floor of the studio between stacks of bars and girders, raw materials waiting their turn to be transformed. "I wish you'd let us switch to the stainless steel. Cutting the stuff was already a nightmare. Welding it's been even worse."

"I don't care," I told him. I stepped around the tape square marking a fall zone, glancing up to see the long boom of the small crane that was currently positioning the top of a piece nearing completion. Welders waited on the scaffolding around it to fix it in place with temporary joints, so that it could be reviewed one last time before it was dismantled and shipped to its ultimate destination. "Titanium was the necessary material. In any case, it's done."

"The welding isn't," said Marcus, frustrated. "The temporary assembly is still behind and the client's coming for inspection tomorrow."

"We'll handle the final review on-site," I said.

Marcus looked astonished. "You're going to let them assemble it?" he said. "Without a review?"

"I'll be going along to assemble it," I said. "Any mistakes can be corrected then. _That angle is wrong!"_

I yelled up to the crane operator, my voice carrying with practiced ease over the din. The sail of blue-coated steel that swung from the crane's boom paused in its descent. I left Marcus at ground level and pulled myself up the scaffolding to the peak of the installation. The crane operator obligingly swung the component over to me. It formed the top arc of a piece destined for a corporate courtyard in Chicago. The teal and silver stripes painted onto the steel created, from a certain angle, the company's coat of arms. The bends of the metal, on the other hand, created a much more important shape - one that had been distorted by a careless joint. The unbalance soured in my mind like a discordant note.

After a minute of frustrated explanations I simply ordered the crane operator to drop the component to the hangar floor. "Send this one back," I told my lead apprentice on this installation, marking the jarring angle in the fold of steel with a china pen. "Make sure they've matched it _exactly_ to the blueprints, you understand? It will _not_ go out until I've reviewed it." The lead's annoyance was obvious, coupled with Marcus' irritation emanating from behind me; I ignored them. Let them chalk it up to the artistic temperament. "We have computer-controlled machining facilities for a reason," I finished. "Use them."

I left the team lead bickering with the crane operator over how best to return the sail to the machining facilities on the other side of the hangar and resumed my interrupted journey. Marcus fell back in beside me after a moment. "Put Chicago on hold and move all the welders on the other piece. We'll have it ready for the assembly tomorrow."

"It might be better to move those people to the Rio de Janeiro work," began Marcus. "There's a serious chance we're going to miss the dedication--"

"Then we miss it," I said. "The other piece is our top priority."

"There's no official building dedication we have to be ready for on that one," persisted Marcus. "Perhaps it might be better to ask the client to delay for a week?"

"They've been quite firm on the deadline," I said. "We risk losing the contract otherwise. We must ship tomorrow."

"Fine," said Marcus flatly, making a note on his list. He checked his phone and swore quietly to himself. "I have the New York people hounding me about something for the fifth anniversary of Thousand Gates," he told me.

"They're doing something for it?"

"They're officially installing one of the structures in the MoMA. And they, uh -- they want some of the original studies to go with it."

Marcus must have been my expression cloud over immediately, because he hurried to add, "I've told them it's against your usual policy, but it's such a prestigious exhibit, and they've been hassling me for days now--"

"They know my policy," I said curtly. "There will be no access to my archives. My sketchwork is my business."

"Right," said Marcus. "Right, okay, I'll tell them again."

We had reached the small cube of wood and glass that formed a square of offices in the center of the great converted hangar. When Marcus and I stepped inside the noise diminished somewhat, but the rattle and bang of the work still filtered through the structure of it, a constant vibration in the walls. There was a man in a long black coat sitting in one of the chairs nearest the door. He stood up as we entered. "Mr. Blake, a moment of your time," he said.

Marcus blinked at him, perplexed. "We don't have any interviews scheduled for today," he began.

"I'm not a reporter," said the man.

"It's all right, Marcus," I told my assistant. "Get me the contact information for New York and I'll speak with them." I sent him off and waved to my visitor to follow me into what passed for my office, shutting the door behind us. The wide space was nearly filled with the tables and workbenches that held my prototypes and the huge sheets of butcher paper I used for planning. The walls were lined with whiteboards and corkboards. Above the tables huge industrial shelves stood laden with boxes and rolls of paper all labeled with the final sculpture they corresponded to. Every box was tightly sealed, the scrolls wrapped in dark paper so that no hint of their contents could be gleaned from outside. This space had no roof and the sounds of the work outside suddenly returned in force.

"Coffee?" I asked over the noise, moving to a little pot on a corner table. It was still warm. Lately I had taken to keeping it brewing at all hours of the day. My need for food seemed to be diminishing, and I often went whole days on the coffee alone.

"No, thanks," said my visitor. He gestured towards one of the whiteboards near the door. "I didn't know you were a mathematician, Mr. Blake."

"I've a friend who visits sometimes," I said, pouring myself some of the reheated coffee. "He wanted a change of scene. That's all his work, I'm afraid." This was a lie; the equations and diagrams that clustered thickly on the board were my own. I had sat down a few days prior and begun learning non-Euclidean geometry. It seemed the appropriate moment to do so. There was a time when I would have been dumbfounded at the ease with which I acquired it, I who had ended my mathematical education with high school trigonometry. Now the complexities of Riemannian geometry seemed wholly natural, as if it were simply a muscle I had chosen not to flex until now.

"Well, he's an excellent scholar," said my visitor. "I'm sorry about the surprise. I'm here from the National Intelligence Agency, in fact. My name's Zeke Calvin."

"Not a surprise at all," I said as I returned with the coffee mug, setting it down on a clear spot on a nearby table so I could shake his hand. "I've been waiting for one of you to show up for days now. You're here to take delivery of your installation, yes?"

"Ah - yes," said Calvin. He seemed uncertain what to do with the idea of having been expected. "We're going to have to perform an inspection before it leaves your studio floor. Looking for any contraband, devices, that sort of thing. Routine stuff, standard procedure for an installation on a clandestine campus."

"You'll be able to see the full piece tomorrow," I said. "You'll have full access. Take all the time you need."

"Not today?" said Calvin.

"The welders are still working, I'm afraid," I said. "Titanium is a difficult material to build with, and it's challenged our usual working pace."

"Oh, there's no official deadline from our side," said Calvin. "We'll be happy to wait a few extra weeks if you think it's necessary."

"Not at all," I said. "I pride myself on keeping to my stated delivery dates. It will be ready." There was a deadline, even if it had never been inscribed on paper. A pivot point was approaching when everything had to be in alignment, before the next phase could begin. I was aware of it in the same way that I was aware of gravity, and it was just as unthinkable to defy it.

"There's one other thing," said Calvin. "We're going to need your sketches."

The coffee mug paused on its way to my mouth. "That wasn't part of the contract," I said, my cordial smile now frozen on my lips.

"All your sketches, outlines, blueprints, design, essentially all your creative work pertaining to it," continued Calvin, as if I hadn't spoken. "It's another part of our standard security procedures. It all needs to be kept on file. We need to make sure nothing is added later, and that no one outside the campus can get a blueprint of it."

"I've already complied with your requests regarding photography, and I assure you my creative materials are seen by no one but me--"

"They can always be stolen or lost," said Calvin. "It's non-negotiable, Mr. Blake. The NIA must be in possession of all documentation regarding anything installed on our campus. I'm afraid the work can't be emplaced without it."

I watched him over the rim of the coffee cup. He gave no sign of having any intent beyond enforcing his agency's bureaucratic nonsense, but somehow I knew. I knew that he knew, and that he knew why I guarded my designs. And I knew, also, that he knew why I needed to have this work placed on the NIA's campus in particular.

"Very well," I said slowly. "I'll have the materials ready for shipment tomorrow."

"The NIA thanks you for your cooperation, Mr. Blake," said Calvin. He smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes. "I'll see you at the viewing tomorrow."

"Ta," I said, raising the coffee mug in a salute as he departed in a swirl of coat.

I awoke in the middle of the night. I had not been asleep. I had been doing math again; now fully half the walls were covered with the equations. But I awoke, briefly in control, and I knew I had no time to waste.

I had to climb up the side of the shelving units to reach it. The box was perched on the tallest of the shelves, tucked away so that it was invisible from the ground and so less likely to attract my notice. The outside looked identical to the other slab-sided containers that held the piles of paper and canvas where I did my preparatory work. Where the ideas came to me in scrawling, vivid trails, where the patterns burned against the inside of my eyelids in neon-blue song. But unlike them it bore no name, no date, no signature of what work I had inscribed those lines into.

When I reached the top of the shelves I took a moment to take in the view across the studio. Far in the distance I could see the titanium peaks of the NIA's installation. There were no showers of sparks, no screech and hum of mills and lathes turning in the shop area. The last of the temporary joints must have been put in place and the welders departed for the night. The hangar was briefly silent, and in the silence I could hear the racing of my heart, my fitful breathing, as of some small animal at bay in a thorn brake hoping the hunter will pass it by.

I pulled off the lid. The box was stuffed with crumpled blank scratchpaper as a last measure of concealment, and I fished through the clouds of dirty white until my fingers closed around a slim shape. I drew it out: an anonymous ochre envelope. My hands trembled as I extracted from it a set of drawings made on faded notebook paper.

Wretched, terrible shapes - wretched because they blocked that flow, turned back the rising tide. Made strong whatever defenses our world held against that blue void beyond. The sculptures I had drawn on that last day before I slipped into delusion were an antidote, a last attempt to undo the damage I knew I had wrought. I returned them to the envelope and climbed back down to my workshop's floor. A crate lay open on one table and I could see that I had already packed it with the forgeries I must have begun creating after Calvin had left. Bland, insipid things to my eyes, although I was sure they would fool anyone else looking for the genesis of the massive sculpture I would be delivering to the NIA the next day. The real studies no longer existed. I had burned them after I was sure I had worked out what had to be done. I had to. This installation was my most potent yet, and the raw power in the abstract lines would defy even storage in the darkness of my archives.

I placed the envelope on the top of the stacks of paper and canvas inside the crate and began to nail down the cover. I did not know who the NIA planned to deliver the drawings to; I could only pray Calvin had been lying and they would not end up filed away in some physical-security office, never to be consulted. I had to hope that someone else would be examining what they believed to be the traces of my genius - and, I had to hope, that someone might recognize what they were and forward them to those who might make use of them. Because I never could, I knew that now; after years of attempts I knew that my trembling hands would never build those structures, could not, could not even stand to touch them. I had managed to hide the box, the secret of the existence of this box, from myself so far; now I would have to hope I could hide the secret of the envelope as well. It was all I had left. I was weak, craven, already overcome, and this was my last defiance--

Calvin was polite enough to come himself the next morning for the unveiling. I had hidden the piece behind a plastic curtain draped between a pair of massive scaffolds. When I pulled the rope that yanked the sheet down and revealed the work beyond, he looked suitably impressed. In fact he looked rather stunned. I wondered if he could see the shapes the structure was making, if he could see what I saw: already the formless, glittering haze gathering around the peaks and spires of it, the liquid current pouring down the sinuous roots, the pulsating shapes wrought in electric blue that wove and darted through the titanium sails. Even this far from the space it was designed to occupy, the distortion at its core was already gathering strength. I needed no critic to tell me this was my finest work to date. It had to be, to bear what would come through it.

"It's certainly something," said Calvin after a few minutes. He turned to me. "You know, I never asked you the name of it," he said. "And now that I think about it, I've never heard you mention one."

"I hadn't yet chosen one," I said. "I was waiting to see it in full."

"And now?"

"Ingress," I said, the name flashing bright and clear through my mind. "Its name is Ingress."

And the shapes dove and flashed through the portal, a fluid symphony in blue.

* * *

_There are some places that seem to damp it. I am not certain why. They change almost from day to day, and though usually I avoid them without thought there are times when I am caught, inadvertently, in one of these dead zones. It is in one of these that I write this._

_I cannot say that I am being possessed, for this would imply an outside force; I cannot even say that I am being compelled, when I am compelling myself. I can only say that I am being changed, and what I am becoming I am not sure. Yet perhaps it is a symptom of how deeply it has seeped into me that I am coming to welcome this change, turning my face to it as a flower to the sun. I feel rather as though I have discovered a shadow of myself, an aspect that has always existed but which I was previously unable to access, and we are synchronizing, slowly, across some unimaginable gulf. The chasm that separates ourselves from our shadows grows narrower each day, and the time will come in the very near future when these two realities overlay perfectly, and merge, with who knows what consequence. That day may be hastened, perhaps, by the structures I have built, whether knowing or unknowing; yet if a work of art can aid in opening these portals to who knows where, perhaps they can also act to close them._

_I have sent this to a reputable publication and I beg you to publish without delay, lest I return and dismiss it all as the overheated fantasy of a creative mind. This deadline - the emergence - is coming. Someone must know what is happening. The world must know._

_I sign myself (and entreat you to believe me),_

_Robert Harrison Blake_   
_07.14.2012_


End file.
